But she saw only the pictures on the walls and the hanging draperies, so, with a cold tremor, she went on with the perusal of the letter--
“_You remember, Helen, that night when we stood together in the abbey ruins alone--the cold, grey moonlight streamed through the oriel window--shattered and decayed it was--and rested upon a mutilated cross. You remember that cross, Helen, as, silver like, it stood out in bold relief? My earnest gaze was upon it, Helen, when my fevered, trembling lips uttered words in your ear only too feeble and inexpressive to convey the depth and intensity of that love, which your gentle tenderness and your unsurpassed beauty had won from me. And by that cross I swore to be true to you while I had life. I see that cross now, Helen! Can you? I repeat the oath I took on that night. Will you, oh, Helen, dearest? You do not forget that, while my vow was yet vibrating in your ear, you turned your lustrous eyes upon that glowing emblem of mortal redemption. Your sweet head reclined upon my heaving breast, and in faltering words, you owned that the passion was not unrequited--that you loved me. Your warm, fragrant breath played upon my cheeks as you pointed to that cross, and called Heaven to witness to your truth--to testify that, in the time to come, your affection should be as unchanging and as unchangeable as my own. Look, Helen, there! See you not that cross standing sharply and brightly out from the shadows beyond? Will you refuse the duty it calls upon you to perform, or forget the oath it commands you to remember? Out of my deep love for you, at what sacrifice would I pause? What hesitate to do and dare, that you might be mine? Ah, Helen, will you be mine, as you have so often fondly sworn you were, and would be ever? Are you prepared for the test which shall prove it? It is this. Will you, on receipt of this letter, join me here? Will you, Helen? I have made every arrangement by which you can travel on the 3rd by the four o’clock train to Southampton alone and secure from interruption. On your arrival, you will be received by a lady, who will be expecting you, and will conduct you to apartments prepared for you. On the 4th, we will be united by _a legal_ marriage, as we have been by love, and--nay, we will then bid farewell to England, with hearts light and free; for, come any evil after it, we shall at least be happy in the possession of each other, and can no more be parted, but by death. Helen, my own Helen, if you will fly to me, the devotion of a life will be too poor a return for the integrity, the purity, the magnanimity of your love. If you come not--well, words would be idle.